Postscript to Election 2008

This past Tuesday, Americans signaled loud and clear that it was time for a change. I went to bed that night and realized that for the first time since Al Gore conceded the 2000 election, I felt good about this country again. The election of Barack Obama was one for the history books, no doubt. After a near catastrophic start, I feel like America has a chance to get back on course into the 21st century. What follows are some random thoughts following a record 2-year election cycle and 8 years of WTF? politics. I want to preface this with the fact that I’m a liberal, and my vote was going to go for whoever won the Democratic nomination.

1) It’s about freakin’ time! It pains me that it took 8 years for people to wake up to how bad the Bush administration screwed things up. First they stole the election in 2000. They did. I don’t even want to hear otherwise. Then, when people had the chance to make it right in 2004, they blew it! –Or the Republicans stole Ohio. I’m not sure which. The bottom line is that this is what happens when a bunch of privileged old white guys, most of whom have always been well off and have little idea of what the middle class really is, are put in charge.

2) Yes, there is a liberal media bias. Conservative pundits and NASCAR yay-hoos complain that there is a liberal bias in the media. I agree, but here’s why: When you have educated journalists on a daily basis observing the goings on in the world and seeing it like it is—well, they call it likes they see it. A bias toward what is true doesn’t make it any less true. And speaking of truth…

3) Just because the government says something is true (over and over) does not make it true. Remember the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Remember how the financial carnage on Wall Street was just a bump in the road? Remember when torture was torture and not subject to legal wrangling? Remember Bush claiming he had all of this political capital after narrowly being re-elected (or was that legally elected for the first time) in 2004? Saying it over and over doesn’t make it so!

4) One Shining Moment. I will say that the night Bush addressed Congress after the September 11th attacks was the highlight of his presidency to me. The world was with us. There was an outpouring of goodwill. We had been hurt and we came together. (Never mind the fact that if the incoming Bush people had listened to the outgoing Clinton people 9/11 probably wouldn’t have happened.) It was nice for the 5 minutes it lasted. But then it was politics as usual and the Bush administration squandered that goodwill.

5) Politics sure does make strange bedfellows. You know, I used to like John McCain back in 2000. That was before he pandered to the right to get their support. I saw that McCain again when he conceded the election. Joe Biden slammed Obama in the early Democratic primary then went on to be his Vice President. Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill did their damned best to derail Barack Obama’s candidacy, only to turn around and support him. I look at this and wonder why anyone in his or her right mind would want to go into politics.

6) Joe Six-Packs and Hockey Moms… Remember when people lauded Bush because he was the “sort of guy you would sit down and drink a beer with”? –Or the appeal of Sarah Palin as being “one of us”? You know what? I know a lot of good people who drink beer or who are good moms. That doesn’t mean that I think that they have any business being the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth…

7) The Audacity of Hope: In 2004, fear won the election. It was scary to realize how much people were willing to compromise their civil liberties for a false sense of security. This year, it was hope that won. If you summed up the message of Barack Obama and his campaign in one word that would be it: HOPE. Speaking of which…

8) …Doesn’t it feel good? I love America. For all of it’s flaws it’s still the greatest nation on Earth. I’ve spent the last eight years feeling progressively worse—like ours was a country in decline like some modern day Roman Empire. That feeling is gone. For the first time since 9/11, I feel comfortable saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I feel that those words might actually ring true again.

9) Don’t expect miracles… Bush and his cronies have dug us into a big, deep hole. Yes, there is a renewed vision of America under a President Obama, but let’s be realistic. This guy isn’t going to be sworn in and just be able to fix everything with a few strokes of a pen. It’s going to take work—hard work. I predict in 4 years the Republicans will whine about how the Democrats didn’t turn things around. It’ll kind of be like someone insisting on driving, ignoring suggestions when they get you lost, then complaining when a new driver can’t get you back on the right route fast enough.

10) A New Era. Tuesday transformed America. There’s no going back. The race barrier was shattered. Eight years after the fact, we’ve truly entered the 21st century…

All About Me

My full name is...	Jeffrey John Frank
My hair color is...	Brown with little strands of gray (Damn it...)
My eye color is...	Brown
My favorite color is...	a tie between Blue, Gray, and Black
I have (this number of) siblings; they are...	Kris and Rob
My favorite animal is...	the cat
My favorite fictional character is...	The Doctor (as in Doctor Who)
Some other fictional characters I love are...	Batman, Superman, Mr. Spock, Captain Kirk, Snoopy, Grimjack
My favorite restaurant is...	yet to be discovered, but I eat at Panera Bread a lot...
My earliest memory is...	digging up a toy gorilla that I had buried in my driveway.
Four places I have lived are...	Mayfield, Cortland, Hebron, Plattsburgh
Four places I have worked are...	as a landscaper, a cement yard worker, a summer camp counselor, a nightshift supervisor in an old folks home.
A foreign country I would love to visit is...	Argentina, Holland, Ireland, Scandinavia
My profession is...	school psychologist by day, costumed vigilante by night.
When I was a child I wanted to be...	a guy who caught animals for zoos.
My celebrity look-alike is...	Jason Lee
The most attractive Hollywood celebrity is...	Charlize Theron
Elvis or the Beatles...?	definitely The Beatles (sorry Mom!)
Cat person or dog person...?	Cat person all the way! Dogs are too needy.
Captain Kirk or Captain Picard...?	Captain Picard. Make it so...
If I could have any super-power it would be...	time travel
If I could have a second super-power it would be...	the ability to see the short and long range outcomes of my decisions before I made them.
I tend to date...	brunettes, but I haven't had to date in 20 + years.
A great film that not enough people have seen is...	Unbreakable
A great book that not enough people have read is...	Conversations With God
A cool television show I like to watch is...	Doctor Who
My nicknames are...	Grimjeff, Bigfoot, Hooter, Daddy
Horror films... Love em' or hate em'...?	I've never understood why people would want to deliberately be scared.
Favorite eye color of the opposite sex...?	Doesn't really matter. It's the person as a whole that counts.
The word that best describes me is...	Seeker
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Happy Birthday Superman (and Batman, and Spider-man, and Wonder Woman, and …)

I’ve been reading comic books for the better part of 33 years, and as a kid I remember DC Comics having this column each month called “Ask the Answer Man!” I think the writer of the column was Bob Rozakis or something along those lines, and readers could submit questions for him to answer—hence “The Answer Man”. Anyway, one time someone asked him what Superman or Batman’s birth date was, and his answer was pretty sensible and something I’ve always remembered. He gave a date of February 29th. Now, why would he have picked that date? Well think about it: Superman has been around since 1938. Batman came along the next year. Even Spider-man, who was considerably younger, premiered in the early 60’s, and would be in his 40’s in “real life”. How do these guys stay so young looking? Well, it’s because they only have a birthday once every four years! Try not to think too hard about it—but it is fun to think about nonetheless.

Saying Goodbye

I had a cat. Her name was Sneakers. We named her that because she had four white paws. As a child, my family had had a beloved cat for years named Mittens for the same reason, so this was sort of a way of honoring her memory. Anyway, my wife and I had been married for about a month. We were living in Plattsburgh, NY, where I was scheduled to begin graduate school in the fall. We found Sneakers in this tiny, out-of-the-way pet shop around the corner from one of the malls. She was this little gray tiger in with a couple of other kittens. I remember that she had huge ears relative to the rest of her body, and when we stood there looking into her cage she reached a paw out to us as if to say, “Pleased to meet you!” or “Pick me! Pick me!” –That’s all it took. My wife and I were sold. We brought her home that day. I can remember how we would be eating dinner, and suddenly the tablecloth would stiffen on one side. Seconds later, Sneakers would have clawed her way up to pay us a visit. Then there was the time I came home to find that she had gotten herself so tangled up in one of her cat toys that she may well have choked herself if I had arrived later. As a kitten, we would take her in the car with us if the weather weren’t too hot or too cold. Most often she would curl up in the back window, and take in the world.

Grad school ended after two years. Sneakers grew into those big ears, and she came with us to a rental house for a year, then our first home for six years, and finally to our current home, which we moved to just before 9/11. We brought other pets into our home—a second cat, a couple of dogs, various fish, and eventually some horses (well, those last ones never officially lived in our home, but you get the idea). But of all of them Sneakers held a special place in my heart. She was like our first child.

Of course, the heart-wrenching reality is that cats have a much shorter life span than people. These past couple of years I noticed that Sneakers was slowing down. She always had gray and white hair, so it wasn’t as if you would notice her aging in that manner. Around November, we noticed that Sneakers was visibly declining. She hardly got up and walked around. She wasn’t eating or drinking much, and when she did drink it was like she couldn’t get enough. She seemed disoriented, like she wasn’t really sure what was going on around her. She began to seclude herself, which had always been a sign of discomfort on her part. I knew she was old (over 15), but I didn’t want her to suffer. So on December 18th, I called the vet’s office, and brought Sneakers in. On the drive there I was wavering between the thought of this being her last trip and the hope that maybe things weren’t that bad. Within a half-hour, my worst fears were realized: Sneakers kidneys had shut down, she was in pain, and the prognosis was very poor. I cannot explain the agony of making the decision to end a friend’s life. –To have them put to death in order to ease their suffering. It was not a decision I took lightly. For several eternal moments in that examination room, I fought back tears while my mind raced for some sort of alternative. But I found none. The choices were to let Sneakers waste away in pain over the next few days as her body failed her, or to have the Vet painlessly end her life here and now. I decided not to prolong her suffering.

The Vet came in, I made my choice, signed some papers (It felt like signing a death warrant, even though I knew I was making the best out of two lousy choices), and he asked if I wanted some time alone before he did the deed. I was thankful for that. In those last few minutes that seemed to last forever while at the same time ticking away all too quickly, I got down on the floor, and tried to get Sneakers to come to me. As I had mentioned, she often seemed disoriented in those last days. Whereas in the past she had always readily came, toward the end she had been reluctant to do so, probably because she felt so awful. I looked down at her, wishing I could explain to her what was going to happen to her and why I had made the decision I had. I wish she could have told me that she was okay with it. Anyway, in our last minute together—the last time I would ever see her—I rubbed my fingers together like I always did, and Sneakers came over to me. I pet her and hugged her and gently kissed her on the head. I whispered, “I’ll see you again.” –And in that moment I believed wholeheartedly in Heaven and all that stuff about being reunited with loved ones who had passed beyond the veil. I believed it more than I think I ever had before in my life.

I handed Sneakers over to the Vet, and fought back tears and a runny nose while I paid and left. I had to break the news to our two children, and my wife held me as I cried on and off. A few days later the animal hospital sent a sympathy card, which I much appreciated. I loved that cat. I liked her more than I like a lot of people I encounter in my travels. And if you’re a “cat person”, you get this. You know right where I’m coming from. And if you’re not a cat person, and you think this is a lot of drama over “just” a cat, then pick your favorite colorful expletive and be so kind as to do that to yourself.

The last week in February, my wife and kids finally talked me into adopting a new cat. Her name is Belle, and she’s a moose of a cat. It was a hard sell for me. I wasn’t over Sneakers. I’m still not. But in saving the life of a cat from a shelter, I feel that I honor Sneakers’ memory. There are so, so many dispossessed animals out there. If you are considering getting a new cat, dog, rabbit, or some other pet, please consider a shelter first. You’ll get a new friend, and you’ll save a life too.

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

NEW YORK-Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.